


wasting, not wasted

by R_Gunns



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Old Age, Panic Attacks, Super Soldier Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 10:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3116780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is well acquainted with endings. He looks at his body in the mirror, runs soft, uncalloused fingers over softer flesh, and thinks that maybe this is his own.</p><p>(a look into the future, at the serum's effects on Steve)</p>
            </blockquote>





	wasting, not wasted

**Author's Note:**

> I've seen lots of fic about the serum degrading over time. This fic is pretty much just: 'what if the opposite happened?' Spoilery warnings at end if ya need 'em.

Steve is well acquainted with endings. He looks at his body in the mirror, runs soft, uncalloused fingers over softer flesh, and thinks that maybe this is his own.

-

Time passes.

They find Bucky, SHIELD rebuilds itself from its rotten core, the world is saved again (and again). His tentative friendship with Tony is irreparably damaged.

Time passes.

Sam moves into the Avengers tower, Steve and Bucky do not. Bucky begins to recover, and Steve watches him fight daily with his demons while Steve buries his own deep enough that he can pretend they don’t exist. Bucky begins to function well enough that he joins the Avengers, and Steve--

Steve--

 

Time passes. Steve curls in on himself when he sleeps, **if** he sleeps, back pressed against the wall, fingers gripping his thighs, 280 pounds of super soldier in a tight shaking ball. Bucky and he sleep in separate beds, though in the same room. Bucky no longer suffers from regular night terrors and doesn’t have any trouble sleeping next to someone in a bed, but Steve is violent when he wakes from his nightmares, his mind not aware enough to account for his strength. He’d almost regularly left Bucky with bruises from gripping him too tight in his sleep. Then in his panic he had hit Bucky hard enough to crack his sternum one night, and Steve has refused to share a bed since. 

Time passes.

Steve had been…functioning, for a long time. Despite the constant swirl of fear and anger he’d felt, he functioned. But Steve doesn’t think he’s functioning, not any more.

He gives Sam a redesigned captain America suit over dinner one night, and when Sam says he might be getting a bit old, but asks him why he was retiring the shield, Steve spent the next half hour shaking and throwing up in Sam's toilet.

Time passes.

-

Steve watches ghosts in his peripheral vision. He blinks, and they disappear.

'Steve?' someone behind him asks, voice uncertain. He turns, seeing a shadow of an old friend, but: 'How are you doing today Steve?'

Not an old friend then, not a new one either. He grunts, waves a hand. The TV in front of him mourns the death of an Avenger.

> _Elizabeth Chavez, also known as the Avenger Hawkeye and the granddaughter of Kate Bishop and America Chavez, has been found dead in her apartment at the age 74. So far it seems that there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding th-_

The TV screen cracks and goes black. Steve’s knuckles ache. 

Time passes.

He visits Bucky one morning in the summer, presses his fingers against the marble and notes the smoothness of his own skin, hating it. He catches his hand on a fence as he leaves but doesn’t look down to see his skin knit itself back together before blood has time to well.

-

A long time ago, a friend had asked him if he knew the lifespan of the serum. He’d shrugged, clueless, then let himself be subjected to half a dozen tests, to no conclusion.

Later, much later, there were more tests, this time spurred on by panic and fear instead of curiosity.

Someone says ‘H _ow_ ’ and ‘He _shouldn’t be alive right now_ ’ and someone else says ‘ _F_ _uck_ ', and time passes.

He wakes, and the same voice says ‘ _We have to tell you something_ ,’ and wavers, cracks, then continues, _‘About the serum.’_

(Someone had told him once that the best things get better over time. They had listed only a couple of examples: wine, and cheese, and dandelions, and then they pointed, pressed a finger against his skinny chest and said, ‘ _You too Stevie, just you wait. Give it a few years and I’ll betcha you’ll be taller than I am.’_ )

Except he hadn’t gotten better on his own, had he? And as it turns out, sometimes things getting better over time isn’t a good thing.

-

People think unresponsiveness is synonymous with catatonia, which is fine. He just wishes _people_ would lower their voices.

'Such a shame, what happened to him,' someone says. (Small pinprick, adamantium needle. Has to be done twice because his body forces the metal back out before the liquid can go in.)

'What  _did_ happened to him?' (Pat on the shoulder, shirt back on.)

'They aren't sure. Think time just caught up with him,' they say, letting the door click shut as they leave. Footsteps down the hallway and he still hears, _'It's not right. There's a reason we don't live that long.'_  

Time passes. Steve loses track.

**Author's Note:**

> The sort-of allusions to Steve/Bucky and Steve/Sam can be interpreted however you want, btw. They aren't really important to the fic. This is sort of experimental so if you liked it I'd love a comment for encouragement!
> 
>  **warnings** : mention of needles, a small cut, Bucky being dead (not his death, and not directly mentioned), panic attack(s), catotonia..... i think thats everything.


End file.
